What are attachments, and how do they affect us?

What is attachments, and are they good or bad?

My understanding of attachments is what we get when trying to find ourselves with our logic sense. When we’re logically trying to make an understanding of who we are without actually feeling. We reach for the things we like, and we make them a part of our selves. It could be our hobbies, money, family, friends, our car, our clothes, our body and so on. Our attachments becomes our identity. The attachment itself aren’t necessarily that bad, its everything that follows. If we identify ourself with being rich. The number on our bank accounts can always be greater. If we identify ourself with how our body looks, it can always get slimmer or more muscular. If we identify ourself with our skills on the guitar, we can always get better. In other words, we’re looking for fulfillment in the limitless. We’re looking to be enough in places where there will always be someone who is better than us. We’re looking for peace in places where we’re constantly being challenged. We might feel happy when we buy ourselves new clothes, learn a new song on the guitar, get a raise at work, but this feeling of happiness will fade shortly after, and when it does we start looking for that next high. We carry our attachments as we carried our batman or barbie adhesive plaster when we were kids. The desire to get it, the excitement when we got it, the pride of having it, the fear of loosing it, the pain when it got ripped off and the shame or jealousy of not having it when your friends did. Attachments are illusions and the birth of greed, pride, fear, shame, lust, guilt, desire and anger. It’s the separation of the spirit and the mind.

Why do we attach

I think the reason for it is the general way of life we live, maybe especially in the west. Our first couple of years our spirit and mind seems to be balanced. We’re true to our feelings and we dare to express them freely as we learn. But shortly after we are placed in a system with focus on external knowledge. What I mean by external knowledge is that we learn to observe what’s outside ourselves. Math, science, biology, history and so on. And we’re getting extremely good at it. We’re in a system that priorities efficiency and productivity before happiness and enlightenment. There is unbalance between the mind and spirit and the Jin & Yang. Our instincts wants us to find happiness while our ego runs in survival mode.

How can we break free from our attachments?

It’s like bringing the ring to Mordor. The objective is simple, but the journey is an epic and challenging adventure towards peace and happiness and it is often referred to as The Spiritual Awakening. Let go of who you think you are and acknowledge that what you are is nothing that words or numbers can describe or measure. A sensation of life, not worse or better than anyone, but exactly the same. We’re all roots to the same tree of life.

How we judge others are a reflection of how we judge our selves, but when we accept ourselves for who we are, we accept others for who they are as well. As our need for being better resolves, we stop to judge and we start to give rather than take. When you see weakness, you provide strength. Being judged doesn’t affect you. Your motivation in life increases as it comes from the heart. We dare to embrace our weirdness. We dare to be vulnerable and we find our true passion.